


Raising Mary Goore

by xxbakacoconutxx



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band), Repugnant (Band)
Genre: Emotional Abuse, Fist Fighting, Gen, Get ready for some angst, Many more tags to come, Strangulation, foster home au, minor blood, neglect of children, the title is a pun so we're off to a good start
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:00:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxbakacoconutxx/pseuds/xxbakacoconutxx
Summary: The average number of homes a child is moved to while in foster care is seven. Mary Goore is on Family Four.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 24





	1. Four miles away and six feet down

"We can't keep going like this, Chuck. The things he says sometimes.... and where does he go at night? I just -- I just don't feel safe."

"Lauren, you know he's a teenager. He's in that phase -"

"No. No, that boy has something evil in him. I see it in the way he looks at us."

"Honey he's only been here three months. I'm sure he's just acting that way because he doesn't know us yet; he's trying to scare us off."

"Well it worked. We've done our best. We've done everything and nothing has changed."

A beat of silence before she continued,

"I won't have him in this house."

Mary just sighed, his ear pressed to his bedroom door. Looks like Family Number Three isn't going to work out either.

\-------

"How was your day, Mary?" Helen asked. She was a thin, sallow-skinned woman with pale blonde hair and stern blue eyes. Her fork hovered above her dinner plate, full of peas, as she smiled at him from across the table. Her smiles never really reached her eyes.

Mary looked back at her, glaring as he finished chewing his mouthful before speaking. "Fine," he responded, before purposefully taking another bite of his overcooked pork. Family Four hated bad table manners, so maybe if he kept his mouth full they'd give up trying to talk to him.

"Just fine? Nothing fun happened?" George -- a large fellow with a bristly mustache, closely trimmed brown hair and a broad grin - asked from the head of the table. Mary didn't like him on principle; he could tell he was a project that George wanted to "fix".

Once again, Mary took his time before replying, "No. Just school." 

He watched the silent exchange the two had - eyes darting to each other before George's left eyebrow ticked up in suggestion. Mary internally groaned. He knew what talk was coming and he rolled his eyes over to the youngest of the family, the six year old Daniel. He had sandy blonde hair like his mother, but was lucky enough to have the warm features of his father. The nosey little thing was busy trying to decipher what his parents were trying to talk about. Mary really didn't want the little snot to hear him get lectured. Again.

"Mary, your father and I--" Mary had to grit his teeth to restrain himself. He didn't feel like having that argument again -- "are concerned about your grades. Your report card came." Helen paused, waiting for a reaction. She probably expected him to look away or feel contrite and make promises to do better. He just held eye contact. She pursed her lips together and continued, "You're still doing poorly in everything except for shop class. I thought we talked about this?"

Now, Mary could take this one of two ways. One: he tells her that none of the bullshit in history class matters and it's all propaganda anyway and it won't help him get a fucking job so she can shove it. Or two: not very politely point out that he has, in fact, improved his grades since their last talk. It's gone from a solid F to a D+, thank you very much.

He decides to go the route of self preservation. "I'm working on it," He says, pushing some of the peas on his plate around. They wouldn't give him time to eat again until they were done.

"You know, if you need help, we're always available. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I still know a thing or two!" George chimed in. If Mary hadn't heard that canned response from 3 other father figures, he might have warmed to the idea.

Helen cut in, "George, the issue clearly is that he's just not applying himself." She turned back to him, false smile pasted on again. "We both know you're smart, Mary. We know you can do more for yourself."

And oh boy, Mary was not going to have this conversation. He was not going to sit there and talk about "what he wanted out of life." There was a lot that he could say, so much that he could just fucking unload on them about who the fuck he is and what his goddamn "future" looked like, but he didn't know these assholes and they didn't have the right to get to know him. 

He dropped his fork to his plate and stood, looming over the table and hissing, "I said I'm working on it." He didn’t give them time to say anything; he stormed away. He wasn't sorry and he wouldn't apologize and he didn't make empty promises.

He wasn't petty enough to slam his door, but he wanted to. Instead he just sat on his bed and seethed, feeling impotent and caged. He'd let himself go wild in his other homes - he said and did whatever he wanted and look where that got him. He hated - HATED -- this falsehood, this poorly constructed guise made of lies and pleasantries and compliance that he was forced to live in. He knew who he was, and being in this place made him feel like he didn't fit into his own skin. But, he'd had worse and he had to fucking suck it up if he didn't want to risk ending up in a place like Family One again.

He sat, brooding and listening in to the rest of the family's conversations for hours. He was too wrapped up in his own head to be bothered with trying to entertain himself. 

Half after nine, Mary heard footsteps pause outside of his door. Fuck. He should've turned the light out so he could pretend to sleep. A soft knock came. "Mary?"

It was George. Mary debated himself for a second before moving to unlock and open the door. He leaned against it's frame, making it clear this wasn't a sit down kind of conversation. "Yeah?"

George tried for his usual smile, but seemed to have trouble getting it to shine as bright as usual. "Hey, I just uh." He picked at his fingers for a second. "I just wanted to let you know your mom called when you were at school."

If he were able to see his own reaction, he would've scoffed. His eyebrows went up, finally relaxed from their scowl, his arms uncrossed and he straightened from the doorway. For a second, as his face blossomed open in anticipation, he actually looked like what he really was -- a vulnerable sixteen year old who wanted contact with someone.

Something constricted in George's chest and god, how he wanted to help this boy. But, for now he had to deliver the bad news: "She won't be able to have you over for your monthly visit."

Mary very, very carefully schooled his expression back into his usual scowl. He was hurt, of course he was, but he wasn't going to let that show. Pain was something that could be taken advantage of. "Did she say why?"

George shook his head, lips pressed together and eyebrows drawn. "No, but she wanted you to know she was sorry and that..." He hesitated, unsure if he was about to make things better or worse. "... that she misses you."

Mary nodded, eyes on the floor. They stood together in silence for a beat or two before he quietly muttered, "Thanks for letting me know."

George had the good sense to know when someone needed space, so with an apologetic smile, he replied, "Of course. Have a good night, Mary." He turned and continued down the hall to his bedroom for the night.

Stepping back inside, Mary closed the door to his own room and clicked the lock. He stayed there, leaned against the door until he heard the dual snores coming from the other room. It was harder to tell when Daniel was asleep, but his room was all the way down the hall so chances were good that he couldn't hear this far anyway. 

Mary went to his box of shirts that were packed away in his closet, pulling off the plain baseball tee Helen had gotten him as he went. On the top of the pile, HIS pile, was his Morbid Angel tank and he slipped it on. It smelled like him and fit him the way he liked and it made him feel so much more like himself. He dug through the box again to get to his dirty, torn jeans and wiggled out of the new pair he had on and into his old pair as quick as he could -- he had to be careful not to stick his foot through any of the holes. He grabbed his mud-caked boots and sat on the floor to lace himself into them. He didn't think he'd need his coat tonight, so when he stood he only grabbed his acoustic guitar from where it was hidden in the back of his closet. 

Helen, like the "mom"s of the other three families, had asked if he played, a spark of interest in her eye. And just like he had for the past two families, Mary lied and told them that he kept it because it belonged to his mom in the hope they'd leave it be. People seemed to think his mom was a sore spot and they weren't... entirely wrong. 

Being reminded of his cancelled visit got him up and going, sliding his window open and popping the screen out with a practiced ease. He had the good luck of getting into a one story house this time, so he was able to simply wriggle his way out of the window and into the flower bed below, reaching back in to pull his guitar through. He slid the window shut again and slipped off into the night. He had maybe four miles to walk, and it never felt like any less, but at least this area wasn't patrolled by cops too often. His street was nice, part of a plain cookie cutter neighborhood with prefab houses and prefab families. Perfect nuclear family units and perfectly manicured lawns. Mary finally caved to being a little petty and used the heel of his boot to squish down and dislodge an over watered corner of someone's lawn. It didn't matter, and no one would care, but he got to privately know that it wasn't perfect anymore. 

He kept walking, following the well-known route he'd plotted out six months ago. As he went, the houses became more run down, transitioning from simply needing a good power wash to having broken down cars on cinderblocks out front, the lawns getting smaller and browned. Finally, the line of houses stopped and he came up to the local cemetery. 

It was a budget, bare minimum kind of place next to an old crumbling church. The wood of it was rotting, the paint yellowed and flaking, but every Sunday the congregation still came to give their money away for God. Mary scoffed as he walked straight into the graveyard. 

There was no fence to worry about, so he just continued to his favorite spot -- an old oak overshadowing the sparse graves below. There were only a few with decorations on them, and only two mausoleums toward the back; most families around here probably couldn't afford something like that. 

Mary plopped down with his back to the tree, boots digging into the dirt as he settled his guitar in his lap. He did his best to tune it by ear; he had a pretty good knack for it and it'd have to just be good enough since his actual tuner was left in his coat. He settled his fingers on the strings, plucking them idly to warm them up before doing what he did every night: singing to a crowd who would never tell anyone.


	2. A Little Down Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's get to know Mary better....
> 
> Once again, thank you [Slimylayne](https://slimylayne.tumblr.com/) for being a great source of inspiration!

Mary huffed as he parked his hand cart, heavy with inventory bins, in bay 3 of the stock room. It was a large, musty, dusty room in the back of the pharmacy where Mary worked. You could never touch anything in there without having to wipe your hands on something after. John, Mary's immediate coworker, was pushing his own cart a few yards away. He was something of a musty, dusty guy himself -- maybe a bit too old for this job, smelled like Marlboros, and worked the trucks with Mary twice a week. Sometimes they hauled their bins in silence, but sometimes they were in the mood to shoot the shit.

"No, man. No way, H.I.M. is not metal. You can't convince me," Mary said, popping open the top box of a fresh stack of bins. Cosmetics: bay 5.

"Ok, no, hear me out! They've been doing the Satanist metal love thing since the 90's, you can't just dismiss them because you don't like them!" John said, using one of those safety box cutters to open up a case of paper towels. "That's like 20 years of--"

"Cheesy lyrics! I can't understand how they managed to make Satanism cheesy! How do you even do that? And their synths are bad," Mary said, as if that was the end of the matter. 

John was on a mission though. "Not all metal has to sound like Angel Witch to sound good. I think you should just give it an honest try. "

Mary rolled his eyes."Yeah right. Over my dead body," he said, checking another stack of bins. Paper products: bay 10.

"Or on the ride home," John said, smirking.

"Oh, no." Mary actually dropped the paper plates in his hands back into his bin. "No, you wouldn't."

John walked toward him with his cart, looking all too pleased with himself. "I would and I'm going to," he patted Mary's shoulder as he passed "it's my car, Mary boy!" He called before he pushed out of the room's swinging doors. 

Mary groaned and let his head thud against the handle of his cart a few times.

\------

It was close to the end of his shift when Amanda, the cosmetics girl who looked too young to work there, came over to him. 

"Hey Mary, could you help me with something?" She asked. She was almost a head shorter than he was, so her blue eyes blinked up at him from under too much mascara. 

Mary placed the box he'd just lifted back onto the floor. "What's up?" 

"I uh," she paused and blushed lightly, shifting in her tennis shoes. "I'm too short to reach," she finished, and pointed her thumb behind her. There was an older and equally short lady standing by the shelves for skin care. She waved slightly as Mary and Amanda walked back over.

"It’s the Eucerin tub, the 16 ounce one up there on the top," Amanda said, pointing out the bottle to him.

Mary stood silently for a moment, considering. Truth be told, he was on the short side himself -- even at 16 he was still only 5'4"ish. He could probably reach if he stood on the bottom shelf? It was against the store's rules, but fucking whatever.

"I have a stool at home I'm always dragging out for things like this! My husband laughs, but he doesn't understand short people problems like we do!" The lady behind him joked. Mary didn't join them in their shared awkward chuckle. He didn't mind being part of the "we" there, he just hated small talk. Partly to get away from that, he stepped up onto the bottom shelf, nudging some bottles of sunblock out of the way with his foot. He stretched and reached and his fingers caught the lip of the tub -- once, twice -- and finally managed to pull it over the edge to drop into his other hand.

"Mary, I'm telling!" John yelled, cackling from somewhere a few aisles away. He must have caught them while he was walking by.

"Shut up, you idiot!" Mary called back, laughing a little himself. He stepped back down and handed the tub to Amanda.

She looked at him and said, dead serious, "I never saw anything." The lady behind her mimed locking her lips.

Mary just smiled and shook his head, walking away to finish up before he clocked out.

\------------

John -- as promised -- blasted H.I.M. on the drive home, and Mary -- as promised -- hated every second of it.

"Oh, come on, it's not so bad!" John yelled as they pulled up to Mary's place, volume still all the way up. Mary didn't feel like shouting, so he just flipped him off as he got his backpack off of the car floor. "Alright, whatever! I'll bug you again Thursday!" 

Mary thanked him for the ride -- whether or not John heard him was unimportant -- and got out. John's beat up little black sedan gave a short beep before driving away, taking its bumping bassline with it. 

Mary stood in the driveway, taking a moment to breathe in the evening air. He was relaxing. He was stalling. He didn't want to go in. 

He liked work; he liked being relied on. He liked being treated like a person and not a caged animal. He was used to room searches and a strict schedule from the group homes, but they were at least up front about it. The way Helen dictated his life and manipulated things to try to make it look like that _wasn't_ what she was doing was really wearing down his tolerance. He'd thought maybe work would prove to her he was capable -- that he didn't need her to lord over him and he could handle himself -- but, well...

With another sigh, Mary felt his mood sink down a few notches as he walked in. Helen poked her head out of the kitchen. "Hi sweetie," she greeted and Mary grit his teeth. He hated when she used pet names. They weren't hers to use.

"Hey," he called back, and sped by before she could start a conversation. He'd learned that even if they started off alright, she'd always end up talking about one of his "behaviors" he should "work on". Honestly, if she wanted a perfect kid she should've been pickier about who she was fostering. 

Walking into his room, he tossed his backpack onto a chair in the corner. It hit with a louder thud than he intended -- he forgot he'd actually brought some books home. He froze, listening, his hair on end. He felt his heartbeat in his throat and he held his breath to quiet it. He listened to her hum to herself in the kitchen, not trusting the seconds that stretched by.

Eventually, he needed to breathe so he slowly exhaled and tentatively deemed himself safe. Mary quietly closed and locked his door, and took a moment to focus on untensing his shoulders. He swallowed and shook out the prickly feeling in his fingers. 

Helen wasn't like that. He didn't like her at all, but she wasn't like that. 

He shook his head like a dog and began changing out of his work clothes. He put on an outfit she would accept -- boot cut jeans and a tshirt with some meaningless geometric design -- and flopped into bed. He knew she'd call him out for dinner soon, but he planned to see as few people as possible otherwise.

Daniel, apparently, had other ideas. "Maaaaaaaryyyyyyy!!" His voice singsonged through Mary's door.

Mary groaned. He was absolutely not ready to deal with a little snot of a kid. "What?" He called back, sounding absolutely pained. He grabbed a pillow and smooshed it into his face. It wasn't going to help anything, but the pressure made him feel better.

"Come play Legos with me!" Daniel called and, well -- it made Mary pause in his mental bitching. He'd been asked to do stuff for Daniel, like opening things or helping him make a snack, but he'd never actually asked to spend time together before. Of course, Mary wasn't interested in doing anything of the sort, and his first instinct was to snap at him and tell him to go away. He'd opened his mouth to do just that when --

_Mom? Can we play tag?_  
_No, Mary. Stop asking._

\-- and Mary felt the fight leave him, the weight on his chest making him feel like his whole body was deflating. The pillow suddenly felt suffocating instead of comforting so he tossed it off and rolled to his feet in one motion. He opened his door only to glare down at Daniel's beaming face. "I don't play with Legos, think of something else."

"Aw, c'mon," at this -- much to Mary's alarm -- Daniel latched onto his arm and started to tug him down the hall. "I got all kinds of sets! I got vampires and zombies just for you!"

Mary didn't... know how to feel about that, so he just let himself be dragged away. They entered Daniel's room and Mary was steered over to a small, low table and instructed to sit. Daniel shuffled around behind him, doing whatever while Mary felt awkwardly oversized among the child-sized furniture.

"Okay, okay, ready? These are soooooo cool!" Daniel said, coming around to the other side of the table with a big box. It clattered as he plopped it down and Mary frowned at what looked like a million different tiny pieces of plastic.

"Uh," Mary started, but Daniel cut in.

"So what you do is --" he paused to plunge his hands into the box and pulled up some flat rectangles and a.... tiny tombstone? "You put them together, like this --" he stopped again while he snapped one slightly skinnier brown rectangle on top of a green rectangle. "And then you put this like this --" Another stop to snap the tombstone onto the top of what was presumably a tiny grave. "And bam! You can make a whole graveyard! You could do zombies, or witches or -- oh! Mummies!" Mary watched as he bounced on his toes in excitement.

"I know how to snap them together," Mary grumped, taking the rudimentary grave from Daniel. He'd never played with Legos before, but it wasn't rocket science.

"Yeah, but you need ideas to do fun stuff. And I'm an ideas guy." Daniel said, hands on his hips, and there was something just so ridiculous about the sheer confidence of it that Mary couldn't help but snort out a laugh at him. He tried to cover it up, but Daniel clearly heard him and giggled too. 

They played for a while, building a creepy churchyard together where they staged a zombie attack and Mary did an impromptu movie narrative. He was... having a nice time? Honestly, even though Daniel was bossy about the exact placement of the little trees, Mary was surprised by how ok he was. He wasn't going to forget that Daniel listened a little too closely to his arguments, or asked invasive questions sometimes, and was generally nosey, but maybe that's just how normal kids were. Mary wouldn't really know.

"Hey, Daniel," Mary said, leaning forward conspiratorially. Daniel leaned in too, eyes wide with excitement. "Wanna see something fun?" At Daniel's vigorous head nodding, Mary reached into their roofless church and plucked their makeshift cross off of their little altar. Just to be a little shit, he turned the cross upside down and snapped it (clumsily, since it didn’t fit right this way) back into the floor. 

Daniel gasped and covered his mouth, but Mary could see the smile behind it anyway. "Oooooh, Mary that's bad," he whispered, eyes scrunching up from his grin.

"Don't worry, I won't tell Helen if you don't," Mary smirked as he straightened up, expecting Daniel to giggle again. Instead, he lowered his hands to his lap and pursed his lips.

"Why don't you call her mom?" He asked. Ah, there was his habit of asking invasive questions again. Mary could roll his eyes, or sneer, or just get up and walk away, but -- maybe this was just an honest question? Maybe it wasn't some mind game he had to play.

Mary responded simply, "Because I have a mom."

Daniel nodded like he understood and furrowed his brows. "I thought you just didn't like her."

Mary didn't want to lie, necessarily, but Daniel was giving him puppy dog eyes and he didn't feel right about telling him this house felt worse than public housing. "It's -- not that I don't like her. She just wants me to be a way that I'm not. It makes me mad," he said, again trying to keep it simple.

Daniel nodded again before looking down at his hands. "I thought you didn't like me either," he said, and oh boy, what a guilt trip. To make it worse, it's not like Daniel was wrong. Mary had made it a point to ignore or be short with him since day one. But was he sorry? Not really, but he did feel kinda bad.

"Look, it's not that I don't like you, I just --" Mary hesitated, trying to find words that could explain without saying too much. "So you know this isn't the first family I've lived with, yeah?" 

Daniel nodded. 

"Well, not all of them were nice. The kids never shared their legos with me," Mary explained, trying for something Daniel might relate to. Based on the pout Daniel's face sunk into, he understood that part. "So, some things about me are weird. Some things I get upset or mad about are weird."

"Is that why you didn't talk to me? It was just one of your weird things?" Daniel looked up at him, hope and childish understanding glimmering in his eyes. Mary wasn't sure he should be using past tense just yet, but he went with it.

"Yeah. You didn't do anything, Daniel. I'm just like that sometimes." Mary said. He picked up one of the little zombies from their scene and rolled it between his fingers.

There was a pregnant silence before Daniel asked, "Is calling me Daniel another weird thing?"

Mary smiled crookedly at him. "You never said I could call you something else. I hate it when people don't use ‘Mary’ for me, so to be fair I don't use nicknames unless I'm told I can." 

Daniel looked pleased as punch. Having control of something so simple could be oddly empowering, Mary knew. "Can you call me Danny then? That way it's Mary and Danny! Or Danny and Mary?" He took a second to think. Conclusively, he said, "Nah, Mary and Danny sounds better."

Mary chuckled at his excitement. "Sure. Mary and Danny it is." He smiled over at Danny while he giggled and bounced in place. Of the ways Mary thought this would go, making a team name with an eight year old wasn't one of them. Somewhere in him, he was still vaguely shocked at how nice this was.

"Boys, dinner!"

And now it was over. 

Without much preamble, Danny scrambled up to run down the hall. As Mary followed -- considerably less enthusiastic about it — he thought back on the last time he'd had a foster "brother", and the last time he'd put up with being called "Mare".


	3. Jimmy was an asshole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary and Jimmy go for a stroll through the park

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, my partner in crime [SlimyLayne](https://slimylayne.tumblr.com/) was a huge inspiration and a great motivator!

Mary Goore was 14 years old and pissed. Greg -- a small, mousey boy with the beginnings of acne -- was sprawled out on the grass in front of him. Jimmy, Mary's burly "brother" in his second foster home, straightened up from the mean right hook he'd swung. He shook his hand out with a hiss. "Little bitch hurt my knuckles!" he said, grinning over at Mary. "Hey Mare, why don't you help out?"

Mary took a second to ask himself if this fuckery was actually happening right now. One second he and Jimmy were walking through a park on the way home from school together, trying to get along, and then Mary blinked and Greg was on the ground. And now Jimmy wanted him to -- what? -- jump the kid? He knew Jimmy was an asshole, but he didn't think he was THIS brand of asshole, and he certainly wasn't going to be a part of it. He stepped off the grass and onto the sidewalk between the two boys, his back to Greg. "Why don't you fuck off home?"

"Mare!" Jimmy laughed like he'd just been told a good joke. The corner of Mary's mouth twitched in a grimace -- he hated that nickname. "C'mon, I thought we were gonna hang out together." Jimmy pouted at him, sticking his bottom lip out and Mary almost recoiled from how absolutely repulsive this boy was.

"This--" he threw his hand behind him toward Greg, who was trying to quietly stifle a nosebleed, "--this isn't hanging out. This isn't something you do for fun."

Jimmy rolled his eyes, affecting a high-pitched whine. "This isn't something you do for fun," he mocked. Mary just stared him down. "You sound like a pussy, Mare. You go around acting like tough shit, but you can't back it up?"

"You should know better than to hurt something just because you can," Mary said, refusing to rise to the bait.

"Oh yeah? Like you've never wanted to? Look at him," Jimmy sneered around Mary, baring his teeth down at Greg. "Don't you just want to dig your boot into his side? Don't you want him to know his place? That he belongs in the dirt?"

Mary could hear Greg whimper behind him. He didn't know this kid beyond his name, but this was some real bullshit. He didn't deserve this -- he just happened to be an easy target walking by. Mary tightened his fists. "No. I don't." 

Jimmy and Mary glared at each other, the sun beating down on the tops of their heads as their breaths became measured. The charge in the air reminded Mary of the smell of thunderstorms. Slowly, a smirk crawled it's way across Jimmy's face, sharp and sick. "What, you gonna fight me for him? You're gonna fight your brother for some little rat?"

The answer was obvious. Mary didn't bother to answer. 

They spent one last moment scowling at each other before Jimmy scoffed, arms falling loose at his sides. Without warning he pulled his fist back to take the first swing, but Mary beat him to it. Jimmy yelped as Mary kicked out with his right foot and got him hard in the side of the knee. He went down fast, scraping his palms on the sidewalk as he caught himself. Mary stepped back as Jimmy took a moment to recover. An optimistic part of him dared to hope that maybe that'd be the end of it.

Jimmy clambered back to his feet, red-faced and with a look in his eye that buried that optimism six feet down. "You little bitch! You think you can fuckin' take me?!" This time, Jimmy took a running approach. Mary managed to avoid getting a punch to the face, but he still crashed to the ground under the force of the tackle. Mary was the shorter and skinnier one, and Jimmy used that to his advantage. He put as much weight as he could over his left hand on Mary's diaphragm, making him wheeze. Mary was too late to block the next punch and he took it squarely in the jaw. Another punch landed right on his mouth -- he was pretty sure it split his lip -- before he finally got his feet under him.

Mary pushed up with all of his strength, bucking Jimmy off and to the side, where he landed belly up. Mary pounced on him, raining punches down on his sweaty face as fast as he could. He felt his muscles burn and his knuckles ache but he didn't want to let this fucker up just yet. 

A flash of red froze Mary in place -- he'd just busted Jimmy's nose. Stuck in that moment, he watched as tears started to run down Jimmy's snotty, bloody face. Disgust -- self disgust -- crawled up Mary's back and wrapped itself around him, making him gasp. He'd... he'd done that. He stumbled to his feet, taking a few steps back to get up and away. His heart was pounding. Jimmy groaned from the ground and brought his hand up to check for blood. 

Oh fuck, he had really hurt someone. They always said he would, but he was always sure they were wrong. He stepped back again, wide-eyed and breathing fast.

Jimmy, meanwhile, wasn't done yet, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let Mary have the last punch. He struggled, but he got back up on his feet, somehow looking both dazed and bloodthirsty at the same time. He scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand before he cocked his head and squared his shoulders. He managed to look pretty smug for a guy with a bloody nose. 

"We own you, Mary. Like a pet. You do what we want when we want or it’s back to the pound with you, bitch." Jimmy smiled broadly, teeth bloody. He took a moment to brace himself, looking like a drunken bull before he charged again, and this time Mary wasn't ready. His back scraped through a bush as they fell off of the path and into one of the park’s gardens. His shoulders cracked against the smooth river stones beneath. He couldn't stop himself from crying out in pain, but Jimmy could. He wasn't bothering with punches this time; he just wrapped both of his hands around Mary's neck. 

Mary scrabbled at his fingers, nails digging in, but Jimmy wouldn't be moved. He tried to yell but couldn't get anything past the thumbs pressing against his airway. His feet kicked, but Jimmy was sitting on his thighs, pinning him. He struggled, flailing and bucking as best he could but he couldn't get any strength behind it. He tried to slap and scratch and punch any part of Jimmy he could reach, but he just wouldn't let up. He was starting to feel lightheaded and alarm bells were going off and he didn't know what the fuck to do.

Jimmy watched, grinning with all of his teeth before he leaned down. He dripped blood all over Mary's cheeks as he whispered, "I'm gonna put you out of your goddamn misery, Mary. Like a sick dog."

Panic shot through him and his left hand flailed out blindly. Mary didn't think -- he was scared. He was seeing spots as his fingers closed around the first thing they landed on. His arms were going weak, pins and needles burning his skin, but he had to force himself through it. He slammed the object into the side of Jimmy's head. 

Jimmy fell to the side, body slumping off of Mary's chest.

And finally, Mary was able to pull in and cough out the earthy air. He stayed still, just shaking and gasping and coughing as he laid there. Tears rolled down the sides of his face and into his ears. He went to wipe them away when he was reminded of the weight in his hand. He wasn't ready to sit up yet, so he just looked down and lifted it to see -- oh fuck. 

Mary felt like he was suffocating all over again. He was holding a rock the size of his fist, and it was heavy for its size. A fresh wave of adrenaline rushed through him as he rolled over, pulling his legs out from under Jimmy's to kneel next to him. Even with his face pressed into the ground, it was easy to see the spot on his temple where Mary had hit him. It was an angry purple-red and swelling already. 

He needed help. He didn't know what to do, who could he -- Greg! Greg could get help! Mary whipped his head around, ignoring the way it spun, to shout for Greg but... he was gone. He must have run away during the fight. Fuck! Now what?! He yelled for help but all that came out was a creaking whisper. He tried again, fighting through the burn in his throat but he couldn't get his voice to stop cracking enough to travel.

He'd have to leave Jimmy to go get help. There was a house maybe a hundred yards away; someone would probably be home, and they would have a phone. Ok. He just had to focus and things would be ok. Mary didn't know if it was safe to roll Jimmy onto his back, so he left him as-is and scrambled up to his unsteady feet. He walked as fast as he could; he couldn't run yet, but he damn well wasn't going to take his time. He focused on the house ahead: pale yellow with a little garden out front and, most importantly, a car in the driveway. 

When he approached, he went up the porch steps two at a time and didn't hesitate about slamming his fist against the door. He heard movement inside but he didn't stop -- couldn't stop -- until he saw the handle turning.

"What in God's na--" Mary hardly waited for the door to open before he grabbed onto the woman's arm.

"Ple-se!" He rasped, "H-lp!" He was interrupted by a coughing fit and the woman, clearly alarmed, took a look at him. He was sure he looked like a feral animal - covered in blood and dirt with a red ring around his neck - but he needed her to move so he tried again. "-mbl'nce! Some'n's h-rt!"

The woman seemed to get the jist of what he meant and gently grabbed him by the shoulders. "Where?" she asked, clear and crisp.

Mary turned and pointed to the bush he'd stumbled out of. He could see Jimmy's feet sticking out of it, and apparently the woman could too because without another word she turned and went back into the house. Mary, left to panic out on the porch alone, didn't know if he should follow or not. He could faintly hear when she started talking on the phone and -- he felt something in his chest cave and his knees buckled. He barely caught himself on his hands and he looked down at his bloody knuckles. What the fuck had he done?

He curled up on that porch, pressing his back against the railing. He wrapped his arms around his knees and rested his sore and bleeding face against them. He cried, alone. The woman never came back out.

He wound up having to be driven to the hospital by his foster mom, Deborah; only one person could ride in the ambulance with Jimmy and they decided on his father, Lloyd. Deborah had been kind and gentle for the entire year he'd known her, but the silence in the car was beyond oppressive. Of all the chaos and upset he'd caused, the one time Mary wanted to explain himself, he couldn't.

Jimmy woke up with a broken nose and a moderate concussion; he would be ok but he needed to be watched for a few days. Mary got checked out too and he nodded along as the nurse told him his throat would be ok and some other stuff about health risks but he'd stopped listening. They left him in the waiting room once they were done with him. He sat, staring at his swollen hands. In the end he had probably over-reacted, but what was he supposed to have done? He honestly thought he might have killed someone.

Alone in those uncomfortable seats, he shook and wheezed and waited... for what? He didn't actually know, but he waited all the same. Time crawled by, machines rattled through, and murmured conversations droned on. His muscles were just starting to unclench when he dimly realized he recognized Deborah as one of the voices speaking nearby. He strained his ears to listen.

"Ma'am, I know this is a difficult time for you, but if you'd like to press charges, now would be the best time to get a statement from him."

"I..." A chill ran down Mary's spine at Deborah's hesitation. He held his breath. "No." One last beat of silence, and then -- "No, I don't want to press charges," she sighed out, and Mary sighed with her. His chest still felt heavy and full of ice, but at least he wasn't going to fucking juvey. He didn't listen to the rest of their conversation as he tried to calm back down. His heart was rabbiting in his chest and he felt strangely trapped in his seat. He didn't know how to feel about anything that had happened that day, and he didn't get much time to figure it out before Deborah sat next to him, silent.

Time ticked by without a word and Mary couldn't stop himself from stealing glances at her. With every minute, his heart ramped up another notch, going from racing to jackhammering. Was she going to finally yell at him? Demand answers? She had to understand that he was defending himself, right? Maybe she wouldn't, or would refuse to. It was her son that he'd put in the hospital, after all. Things would never be the same. Would she resent him? Even if she'd been patient and understanding before, there was no guarantee that she'd stay that way. Maybe by tomorrow she'll feel like he should be punished. Maybe she'll think he deserves it. Maybe she'll enjoy it. Mary's breaths were coming faster -- a distant ringing growing in his ears. 

He didn't know this silent statue next to him. She'd never played mind games with him before, and she'd never been outright cold like this. This woman wasn't the one who'd said "Welcome home" to him when he was dropped on her doorstep. This wasn't the person whose smile was so warm he felt it tingle all the way down to his toes. When they met, she'd hugged him and kissed the top of his head, even though she'd seen his tantrums at the group home. She had been warm and soft and held him tight. In that moment, in that embrace, for maybe the first time in six years, she had made him feel wanted.

And suddenly Mary knew. 

He understood why she was there.

"Your social worker is picking up your things. She'll be by in an hour to get you."

She didn't say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I may be sadist because of this chapter......


	4. Not his goddamn job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary's getting a little sick of teaching people how to be decent.

Mary's notebook was missing. 

He usually kept it tucked away in the back of his closet, inside of his soft guitar case, but when he checked it after work today he’d found nothing. His first thought was that someone must have been really searching through his stuff -- Helen and George must have done another one of their periodic room checks with some extra oomph this time. He paced back and forth, unable to keep still. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions? What if he’d just forgotten to put it back somehow? He lifted his mattress -- he shoved things under there sometimes -- even going so far as to lift it all the way up against the wall, but no. Nothing. It was ok though, he had a couple more spots. He dropped to his knees, digging out some spare blankets from under his bed. There was a spot where the fabric had pulled away from the bottom of his box spring where he’d keep pages he’d torn from magazines -- a strange mashup of metal bands and porn. Still nothing. Ok, well if he was in a really big hurry, sometimes he’d resort to the classic underwear drawer. He stumbled up off of the floor and over to his dresser, where he pulled everything out, boxers and socks flying. All he found was some pens he’d stuffed in there and forgotten about. 

The last place it could really be would be the closet. Throwing open the slatted double doors, he set to work. He dug through piles of clothes he’d been bought, tossing out shoes and jackets he’d never asked for, pausing to shift through and check some messenger bags. He checked on the top shelf, where he’d thrown the ‘self help’ books Helen had bought him -- God knew he would never read them, and her assumption that he needed them was pretty offensive. No luck there either. 

All that left was his box. He knew the contents of that box as well as he knew the inside of his eyelids, but he folded open the cardboard anyway. On top was his favorite shirt, a Morbid Angel tee that he’d cut the sleeves off of a few years back. It was a little grungy at this point, since he kept wearing it to the graveyard, but he could only wash it when no one was home. His pants were in much the same condition, and the holes in the knees were slowly wearing wider. It was fine though, they still functioned well enough. He pulled out a couple more shirts -- ones he was proud of for buying with his own money -- and smiled as he refolded them at his side. Underneath was his denim vest with his pin collection proudly displayed. He didn’t wear it often, since it made noise when he moved and he couldn’t afford to get caught sneaking around, but he loved it all the same. He set it aside before he got down to his CD collection. He carefully pulled them out as well -- Venom, Mefisto, Archenemy, and Amon Amarth were some of his favorites, and some of the hardest to find so he took extra pride in them. He took the time to admire the cover art as he placed each aside, smiling with extra fondness down at the demon adorning Sepultura’s “Bestial Devastation”. It’s twin was tattoo’d into his left bicep, and his grin turned toothy at the memory of getting it. But that was for another time; he set his albums aside and resumed sorting through his box. A couple more pairs of pants, a few Converse shoes, some stray bracelets in varying degrees of spikiness, and finally he was at the bottom. He kept a very special shirt underneath everything else -- a home-made Mercyful Fate shirt that he and his mom had made for their album Melissa. She’d made an iron-on transfer of the artwork, but she’d let him try to accent the details he liked the most. The white of the shirt was starting to yellow, and the sharpie had bled when he’d done the album logo, but overall it was holding up pretty well.He remembered how his mom had blasted the album on her record player the whole time they worked. It took long enough where she had to pause to flip the record more than once. 

Mary felt his heart warm for one brief moment, feeling like he’d come up for air for one, two, three beats before remembering that he’d failed in his search and felt it plunge back down again. He plopped his pile haphazardly back into his box and pushed it away, frustrated. He glanced over at his guitar case, already knowing his answer, but he searched it again anyway. A pack of strings and a string winder, a tuner, 4 picks, his guitar. There were some stray, ancient sticky notes written in his mom’s handwriting, full of chords and their finger charts, but no notebook.

He had nowhere left to search. It was just him and the giant mess he'd made. He’d have to accept that someone had taken it from him.

He was hit with a wave of many, unnameable feelings at once, but mostly he was just wholly, blindingly, angry. How could they take something of his? It wasn't the first time it had happened to him, but it was the first time with this family. He thought they were at least better than that. He’d been foolish enough to think for a second that at minimum, his belongings were safe here. He should’ve known better -- he’s had to learn this lesson over and over. He wanted, more than anything, to go kick in the door to Helen and George’s bedroom and scream at them until he was hoarse -- to take their things, to _break_ their things. He got as far as grabbing his door handle to rip it open before stopping himself.

He took his hand off and watched as it shook in the air, breathing hard and feeling the flush in his face from the adrenaline. He listened to his heart beat in his ears, steadily becoming quieter the longer he waited. He was still convinced that living here was worth it. He wanted to be able to finish his apprenticeship program at school. He wanted to keep his shitty job. He wanted to keep roasting John about his music. He wanted to be stable for more than six months, goddamnit. There were no guarantees about how long his placement would last, but he didn’t want to cut it short either. With a final exhale, he backed down, moving from his door to sit at the edge of his bed. He couldn’t do anything other than sit in his own festering anger if he wanted to stay here. They’d probably confront him for some kind of “talk” eventually anyway. It wasn’t right, but maybe he could get it back from them then. He seethed and soothed and seethed again with his fists clenched into his bed until all the lights went out.

He went to the graveyard empty-handed that night. He'd stewed in his rage for long enough that once he got settled among the headstones -- boots sunk into the mud and ass getting wet -- the other half of everything crept up on him. If he had to be honest about it -- really, really honest -- he was broken-hearted. His notebook was his work, his passion, his imagination, his heart. And now it was in the hands of someone who could never know how much it meant. 

It was easy to speak in the language of the devil, so he did. It was a simple metaphor to couch his emotions and his fantasies in. If he was feeling weak, he could tell a story about a necromancer raising an undead army for himself. If he was feeling lonely, he could write about collecting souls in a bottle to keep him company. If he was feeling nostalgic he could write about visiting a loved one in the underworld. His lyrics, his songs, his drawings - his whole notebook was essentially a coded diary. Of course some of it was crass and gross and funny, but there was also honesty and vulnerability there if you knew what to look for. Disguised in words about summoning demons and eating corpses were feelings of hurt, of powerlessness. 

Of abandonment.

He'd make more songs and more art because he always did. This wasn't the first notebook he'd had taken from him, and from the looks of things it wouldn’t be the last either. But the betrayal stung too badly for him to create anything new so soon. He thought of his silent audience, the ones he kept captive and all for himself this whole time and murmured an excuse about “prepping for new material” to them. Leaning his head back against his tree, he listened to the breeze, to the last few crickets of October, becoming a member of the audience for the night. He sat in silence among the graves and let the soggy ground chill him to his bones.

The next time he came back from work, he'd plopped into his bed face-first and stuck his hands under his pillows to smush them up against him, but -- something was there. His eyes snapped open and he popped up onto his elbows as he ripped his pillow away. He knew what it was before he even even saw it. His notebook -- with its plain black covers and spiral spine -- was there, safe and sound. With both a flood of relief and a spike of anxiety, Mary shot up and laid the notebook out on his criss-crossed legs. He flipped it open to check that it was ok, when a small note written on yellow loose-leaf fell out. He picked it up, pulling open its carefully creased folds to read.

_Mary,_

_Sorry if I worried you. Helen almost found this the other day, but I stashed it in my flannel before she could see. I won't tell her anything, so you can relax. I know she feels differently, but you can always talk to me about this kind of stuff -- I promise I get it. I liked Ozzy back in my day! \m/_

_-George_

What..... the fuck was this? George read through his notebook? And expected them to bond over it? Instead of confronting his wife about how controlling she is, he's instead trying to "share a secret" with him? Instead of fighting to get Helen to stop searching his room, he just squirreled away the things she shouldn't see? Just how spineless was he? And how incredibly blind must he be to not realize that reading through someone else's clearly personal writing was fucked up? There was a tiny, tiny part of him that was thankful George was looking out for him, and glad to have his notebook back, but it was overridden by how pissed off he was. He’d mourned and raged for hours just to get a tongue-and-cheek apology? Fuck. That.

The next time George caught Mary alone in the hall, he flashed the devil horns at him. Mary just glared at him, his upper lip pulling up on the side. He banged into his room, closing the door loudly without looking behind him. For the next couple of days, George would shoot him looks like he wanted to ask something, but Mary never indulged him. As a grown-ass man, he should be able to put two and two together and realize what he did was a gross invasion of privacy. It wasn't Mary's job to teach him how to be a decent person.

\--------

"Mary, Lisa's on the phone!" Helen called from the kitchen. Mary groaned, his head falling back to thud against his headboard. The nice thing about going to a vocational school was that there were hardly any academic group projects, but that didn't mean there were none. Lisa was the proactive one in the group; she kept nagging him about his progress and he really wasn't feeling up for that. But he also couldn't tell Helen to pretend he wasn't home or something. Quickly resigning himself, he paused his Walkman and flipped his notebook shut. He got up and, just for now, shoved everything out of sight between his mattress and the box spring. If Helen knew he had a cd player, there's no doubt she'd want to curate his music collection, and Mary didn't think Bathory would exactly be on the approved list.

Not wanting to get an earful for making her call for him again -- they'd had "talks" about that -- he hastily opened his door and walked down the hall. He rounded the corner for the kitchen just as she was taking a lungful to yell again.

"Oh! Sweetheart, I wasn't sure you heard me! Say something back next time, please," she said and it took everything in Mary's small stash of self-control to not roll his eyes -- she really did always find something to criticize. "Here you go." Confusingly, as she handed the phone to him, she winked and smiled. Mary looked at her like she'd grown an extra head as she left the kitchen.

The conversation was annoying, but thankfully short as they made plans to stay after school to work on their science project. It was going to take up one of his days off from work, but at least it'd keep him out of the house. When he hung up, Helen was back, smiling from the kitchen doorway.

"So, Lisa, huh?" She asked, raising her eyebrows at him. Mary knew right away where she was going with this, but in no way was he going to encourage it. He just stared at her. "She sounds nice. You're meeting up with her Wednesday?" 

Good to know her leaving the room was just a show, and not a genuine offer of privacy. Still, Mary answered, "Yeah. I'll be back by six."

Helen smiled at him again, in that way she had where it never really reached her eyes. She pushed off of the door frame and reached for his shoulder. He did NOT want her to touch him, so he deflected by turning away to open the fridge, pretending to look for something. She remained behind him as he shifted things around on the shelf. He could practically hear her thinking.

"You know, as long as you tell me beforehand, it's ok if you stay out later," she suggested. Apparently this conversation really was going to happen. Mary gave up his act and actually grabbed a soda before he turned and looked her in the eye.

"Why would I want to do that?" He asked, point blank. He watched as her expressions subtly shifted between a few different emotions before landing on something that Mary immediately interpreted as condescending.

"Seems like she calls almost every night. Maybe she likes you?"

And there it is. Apparently she really was going to try to pry into every part of his life. "She just calls about our project."

"She doesn't have to call every night for that." Helen shifted her weight and finally looked away from the way Mary's eyes were boring into her. "A boy your age -- you must have started thinking about girls?"

Of fucking course he has. A touch starved, emotionally stunted teenage boy like him? Of course he thinks about what ANYONE would feel like -- under him, on top of him, around him, in him. Of course he wonders what it'd be like to hear a heart beat beneath his ear. To feel connected to someone. No matter how frantically or often he jerks off behind a headstone at the graveyard, his hunger for contact is never sated.

She doesn't need to know his loneliness though, so he says, "I don't want to date anyone."

Helen put on a look of concern that made Mary's hackles rise. "Oh, Mary. I know that relationships can be scary. It's a commitment, and there's a lot of unknowns to figure out, but--"

Different threads of angry thoughts flash through Mary's head -- she has to dictate what he's allowed to be interested in, but she's encouraging him to go get laid? -- but what he wound up snapping at her was the simple truth: "I don't want a relationship when I don't know where I'm going to be living."

Helen looked... deeply confused by his interruption, and Mary had a sinking feeling in his gut. "But, you live with us. You've been here six months, don't you feel like you can call this home?"

Horribly, a couple pieces clicked together in Mary's mind -- the insistence on calling her mom, the way she was trying to “raise” him, the constant concern of keeping his social worker’s opinion of her high. In disbelief, he asked, "You didn't go to the orientation sessions, did you?"

Helen scoffed and crossed her arms. "I know how to be a mother. But you didn't answer my question. Don't you feel comfortable here yet?"

There were a lot of ways he could tell her he absolutely was not in any way comfortable in this house, but he wanted to stay on track. "It doesn't matter how I ‘feel.’ They can move me any time they want. Even if things go well, a placement usually lasts less than two years -- they don't want anyone to get attached."

Helen's arms dropped back down to her sides and she looked at him like he'd just slapped her. "What does that mean? You could be taken back?"

Mary was oddly, deeply satisfied at managing to rock her boat. Those seminars were meant to prepare foster parents for the specific issues that come with foster kids, and now that Mary knew she fucked up, a lot of her piss poor performance made sense. Knowing that he had proof that the "issues" they've been having weren't just on his shoulders was incredibly vindicating. Instead of answering her question, Mary hid his smile behind his soda and started to walk around her. "It means you should go take those classes."

He heard her say his name -- once, twice -- but he just continued back to his room. It wasn't his goddamn job to educate an adult on how to handle a responsibility they signed up for.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first time writing in about a decade and I'm a little nervous! A HUGE thanks to [Slimylayne](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/slimylayne) on tumblr for helping me come up with the idea and letting me bounce ideas off of her! She's also an amazing artist who already made fanart! [Check it out!](https://slimylayne.tumblr.com/post/617564352487243776/my-amazing-friend-xxbakacoconutxx-is-currently)


End file.
